| A timeline of events �
1997 � Matt Gingrich creates NCICPreps.com, a message board website devoted to North Central Illinois Conference boy�s basketball. 1997-2001 - NCICPreps moves to the Alliance Sports network of websites, which later was acquired by Rivals.com. The name is changed to NCIPreps.com and pictures and stories were added. Forums included an Premimum Ticket Forum (viewable for a nominal fee), the NCI Gridiron (football), NCI Boys Basketball forum and forums for baseball, track and field/XC, wrestling, girls sports, underclassmen sports and separate forums for the Western Big 6 and NIC-9 Conferences. February 2002 � Current NISB Publisher Cody Cutter begins posting on the message boards. New boards created at the time included the ill-fated Jimmyland (home of popular poster JimmyChitwood), and Three Rivers Sports Forums. The Open Forum debuts during this time as well. Fall or Winter 2002-03 � Sterling-based Prep Sports Online acquires NCIPreps.com from Gingrich. PSO moves the website from Rivals.com to JabezNetworks, host of the PSO websites. At this time, NCIPreps becomes strictly message boards. Fall 2003 � NCIPreps.com begins using the PhPbb forum style for the first time. Two new administrators, both PSO officials, are added to the staff. February 2004 � Message boards see spark in popularity in light of the highly anticipated Rock Falls-Winnebago Boys Basketball game. It was common to have around-the-clock discussion about the game in the days leading up to it. March 2004 � Administrators seek help out, as select moderators are chosen to oversee message board functions. June 10, 2004 � NCIPreps begins what was to become an ill-fated construction session, and eventually the NCIPreps.com website was dumped from PSO�s array of websites, effectively shutting down the site for good. June 15, 2004 � Gingrich and Cutter create separate temporary message boards in the absence of NCIPreps. Cutter�s message board site is first called NCIPreps.com, but after realizing the name was still in use by PSO, it was changed to Northern Illinois Sports Beat. Network54 provided the NISB Message Boards, which for the first time had a loose geographic boundary that was considered an expansion of the traditional NCIPreps boundaries. August 30, 2004 � After realizing that NCIPreps was gone for good, Cutter would create a reconstruction, as what was first considered an extension of NISB, of what NCIPreps was like in its days on Rivals.com: Message Boards, news stories, Athlete Q&A�s, photo galleries, and more. The message boards would then simply become a feature of Northern Illinois Sports Beat, along with the text features. Yahoo! Geocities provided the website, and still does to this day. Fall 2004 � First story: NCIC Golf Season Preview First Athlete Q&A: Lisa Rastede of the Sterling Girls Golf team First game article: Bureau Valley Football defeats Sterling Newman @ SHS First Team Spotlight: Fulton Volleyball February 12, 2005 � NISB covers the 8th Annual National City Hoops Showdown at NIU�s Convocation Center. This was considered the first major event covered by NISB. A game article of the Rockford Jefferson win over Rochelle is written, along with a Q&A with Jefferson�s Robert Eppinger. June 4, 2005 � NISB covers its first state tournament: the Class A State Softball Tournament in East Peoria. Rock Island Alleman loses in the quarterfinals to Williamsfield, while Rockridge defeats Beecher, Pickneyville and Williamsfield to win the state championship. June 15, 2005 � NISB�s first anniversary is set. A change of message boards from Network54 to Cjb.net was made in order to rid of advertisement difficulty. Fall 2005 � The �Northern Illinois Sports Beat Report� debuts on EdgyTim.com. Written by Cutter each week of football, news and stories about area football is told to a Chicago-based audience. Winter 2005-06 � NISB partners with StreatorSports.com to provide news to the Streator and Northern Illinois community. Spring 2006 � NISB Baseball Q&A with Seth Blair. Blair gets drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 47th round in 2007 and was projected to be as high as compensation first round. In it, he makes mention of his dreams to become a major league baseball player. June 15, 2006 � Technological changes made to NISB: new message boards and shorter main page URL. Boundaries shrink, axing several far schools including Rockridge, Johnsburg, and Princeville. Summer 2006 � Northern Illinois Sports Beat becomes an officially recognized IHSA Media outlet, giving it all-access coverage to state final events. Also during the summer, NISB is mentioned for the first time in a newspaper, when the Ottawa Times writes about NISB�s predictions for NCIC Reagan Football. February 16-17, 2007 � NISB covers Rockford Boylan at the Class AA Boys Basketball State Tournament, marking NISB�s first appearance at �America�s Original March Madness.� June 15, 2007 � Third State of the Site Address: Advances in technological areas noted, cuts in features and plans to cover the State Football playoffs are announced. January 8, 2008 - The practice of writing game articles is put on hold in favor of more advanced stories, a practice which advances to the next school year. |
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| NISB: Always a Work in Progress |
| Some of the history of Northern Illinois Sports Beat, and its predecessor NCI Preps ...
NISB did not come out of nowhere, as it's predecessors were once the main go-to place for sports information in North Central Illinois. Way back in 1997, NCIC Prep Sports was started by Matt Gingrich ("Ging"). Once an independent site, it moved to the Alliance Sports network. It survived some glitches by A.S. and a merger into rivals.com . From 1997-2003, Ging owned the site and improved it until selling it to Nyle Anderson and Prep Sports Online in 2003 under the name NCIpreps.com. Under PSO's control, Ging was still the moderator and the domain switched from rivals to JabezNetworks and then to the PhpBB style of message boards, supported by PSO. NCIpreps.com was disabled on June 10, 2004 and shut down. A poster on the NCIpreps network, #35, was also a former worker at PSO and during the time when he left PSO and NCIpreps shut down, he started to revive the message boards himself under the Network54 domain. He gathered up some of the posters he knew on NCIpreps and took them to his site, called Northern Illinois Sports Beat. Out was the 'central' part, as he expanded it to include the Dekalb/Sandwich/Johnsburg area and the Rockridge/Monmouth/Galesburg area. Over the time of NISB, #35 has been asked why there is such a large range of schools, and expanding out of the original "North Central Illinois" format. The feeling is that if there is a school in this NCI area, it should be fair if all other fellow conference schools be discussed as well -- not leaving out any beneficial school, including a possible rival. Common opponents of NCI schools are discussed as well. In the two years of existance of NISB there had been many features arrive and go, as well as types of message boards. NISB has had three different types of message boards, and currently they are provided by ProBoards. There was also a shortening of NISB's domain name. Once the different sports seasons come underway, there will be many changes to suit the fans and athletes of Northern Illinois high school athletics. |